Fighting Sail AWI Americans v British

Dave and I have been playing an AWI campaign run by Gary based on the Americans trying to prepare to invade Canada via Fort St. Paul.

It has been great fun and tonight we played a naval encounter using slightly modified 'Fighting Sail'. My Americans had 3 Sloops against Dave's 4 Gunboats. The gunboats were oared so were slow compared to my Sloops but were much easier to turn.

In the campaign the Gunboats had been attempting to return to Fort St. Paul but were caught by my ships in the middle of a lake.

Dave's four gunboats:

My Sloops:

The Sloops split to engage the gunboats from two directions:

One gunboat is sent to the bottom!

The leading Sloop takes damage slowing her resulting in the following ship crashing into the back of her!

The Sloops take some damage while trying to sink another gunboat:

The second gunboat sinks while the leading Sloop takes hits but keeps repairing the damage:

Following this the third Sloop managed to circle around and sink another gunboat leaving just one. The group of two Sloops managed to untangle themselves and it was quickly all over for the remaining gunboat.

An enjoyable game which demonstrated as usual my ineptitude at sailing rule sets! Dave was a little unlucky in that for a few turns my Sloops fired with more dice than they should have before we realised this. I was lucky in that when my ships collided they were well placed to continue firing at the gunboats anyway so it did not matter much in the end.

The big land battle is scheduled for next Monday when the Patriot army will attempt to storm Fort St. Paul, really looking forward to that game.